


we will always have paris

by ninastirith



Category: Tokio Hotel
Genre: M/M, man this would not be a hit on thf would i even get to post it with all these commas, stream of consciousness angst oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 20:31:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5942047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninastirith/pseuds/ninastirith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It probably looks alright, feels alright, but you're gone. You're gone, but not really, and I still see you everywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we will always have paris

**Author's Note:**

> This is a oneshot inspired by the song Vi kommer alltid ha Paris by Swedish singer Veronica Maggio. I looked up translations - they don't convey the feeling, but hopefully this fic does somewhat.

We landed and I woke up, sore and exhausted and my mouth was as dry as the lands we left behind at home. Checked my phone. you hadn't called me back and she was there instead of you and I swear I love her but I see you every time I think of the rest of my life and I'm sorry, sorry a thousand times over at 3 am that feels like late afternoon. Nothing special, nothing new. Dark european skies.

We don’t talk as often as we used to and I thought your voice couldn’t fade from my memory, falter and disappear so that only scarce bones of words remain but here I am now, hearing your “I love you”s and “Goodbye”s as if she said them. As much as I can’t let you go, it happens anyway and I only have scraps left but they’re just what I need. I find them where I least expect them to be and I think that’s what resting, twisting, cold sweating feels like.

Cab ride into the city heart. We're holding hands and you, no not you, her, she kisses my cheek and holds my hand and she rests her head on my shoulder. Her hair smells like shampoo, I put it there this morning and we laughed and swallowed shower water and I love her, I do. L'Arc du Triomphe in the distance, hazy, illuminated and I remember. Kissing you softly on a street corner a block away from there, rushing hand in hand away on narrow side streets, they probably wonder where we are by now but we stole that moment like it was nothing. And there you are again, hands rougher than hers but not as calloused as mine, both more and less resistance. I can't escape and I don't want to, but I have to, don't I? I kiss the top of her head, wake her up softly as we approach the hotel. Not the same one, thank god. That one has you written all over it.

God. Hotel rooms, double beds. Blurry vision, falling off my feet. It's all yours. All you.

I remember those first few months, that year, after. So close and so distant. Two seats in the same row of the airplane, millions of miles apart with my hand in yours because the dream wouldn’t die just yet but then we landed, another city, another day and you wouldn’t look me in the eye. An then, one month, two, three months later, you called me, late, late, time stood still, the mattress creaked beneath me as I turned and dripping of booze and shame you told me you’d always love me. Hung up. We ripped ourselves apart, slept in separate bedrooms from then on. Tending to my wounds has never been lonelier. I tell myself I healed and came out stronger.

I had you, then I had you more. Then I lost you, no matter what we call it.

Early bird, jetlagged. We stroll down Champs Elysées towards Place de la Concorde, holding hands and facing the wind. Her fingers are stiff and cold against mine but it doesn't matter. I lead us confidently, swift steps because I have a goal, a direction, and yet I don't. Yet I don't until the deep crimson chair coverings and golden door handles, heavy doors in solid wood and glass to push open, I'm here again and she struggles to pronounce the name the same way you did once. We had been chased by rain and your hair dripped on the crisp white table cloth and you didn't care. That time, I kissed the raindrops off your nose and chin and your laughter made the clatter of cutlery against obnoxious porcelain sound tacky and strange. Now, I just wish I had a good reason to tell her not to order the cheese and tomato galette. I excuse myself and stumble to the bathroom but they've had them replaced, the wooden stall doors on which you made us immortal. Turns out we weren't at all.

It actually rains today. It seems as if the clocks have stopped. We catch a cab to the Eiffel Tower and I tell her that story, almost ten years ago now, you and I, the band and thousands and thousands of sounds and people right in this spot. I don't remember much, but I remember that we didn't go up the tower that day. We didn't until later on.

She drags me up the stairs - I can hear your nagging echo in my head, your feet hurt, wind in your hair and you can’t see shit. I choke back laughter, bittersweet, missing you, missing you, I take her hand and I hold her close and I kiss her half way up so I won't keep missing you. It doesn't work but we make it up anyway. God, I can see the entire city from here - river and squares and and endless streets. I will my heart not to pound too fast because she doesn't know I can't do heights. A tiny voice inside my head makes sure to let me know that she doesn't, but you do.

I haven’t thought of how things could have been in years. I haven’t thought of the taste of you in years. I have forgotten your arms around me. The only time I remember is when I breathe out. Every breath is a fragment of you and you haven’t called me back yet and everyone slurs their every word down here, it’s not fun anymore to be this far from home. Home, where I can pretend that memories are just sand in my throat and an ache in my bones I can almost ignore.

Early airport morning, boarding passes softly warm in our hands. Has it been long? Has it been no time at all? Everything’s gone and I should be used to it by now, the frustration, the lack of memories you haven’t touched although last time I saw you none of your friends were people I’d met before and they called you things only I had been allowed to, all these years ago when I knew who I was and that I’d be okay. We board in ten minutes and she has bought gum, a little thing that she does, sweet but not like your favourites. She pops one into my mouth just as my phone starts vibrating.

Hi, this is Tom?

“Hi.”

I almost choke, your voice twists its way through my body and suddenly you shared a hotel room in Paris with me and we revisited that café we loved and you frowned at how the old doors were gone on the stalls. Suddenly, you were there holding my hand at the top of the Eiffel Tower and I wasn’t scared at all, not at all. My head is a lie but you, god, you are true but I tell you nothing. I just say:

Hi, Bill. It’s a bad time. I’ll call you back when I’m home.

It’s like any call but I don’t notice until now that the sun is rising, slowly, reflecting in airplane tails and rain spots on the runways, in the backs of baggage trucks. Your place is everywhere and your words are alive in me now, flesh and blood and heat. The hang up button almost draws blood as I press it. I bleed out in smiles, I take her hand, I kiss her and inside I whisper your name because she is my future but you are my life and the pain is worth it even when it tears down my walls. You are the most beautiful thing I have lost in my life but I still find you everywhere, keep you with me.

There’s a nagging guilt in the back of my head as she tells me she’s glad we did this, took time out of our schedules, settled for a weekend just for us for once. I love her, I do, and I need her, a refuge, a home less broken than ours would be. But she doesn’t know that I still watch every sunrise with you.


End file.
